| Summary: | The essay re-examines and re-edits this highly problematic piece in order to attempt to understand it as a response to the crusading movement. The focus is on elucidating meaning rather than analysing in extenso its linguistic and metrical features, which primarily characterised Dominique Billy’s approach in 1995. The lai dates from before the end of the thirteenth century and some indications suggest a time around the first half or middle of the century. The assumption has previously been that nothing is known of the author, but the name Nompar has been used from the Middle Ages to the present by the aristocratic family of Caumont La Force, and it would appear that there were three noblemen of that name during the thirteenth century which could be identified, or at least associated, with the author. Particularly problematic parts of the text have been re-interpreted and in some cases reconstructed, and an appreciation offered of the poet-musicians considerable skill in the delicate interweaving of words, melodic themes and stanzaic forms, in a song which artfully exploits the common theme of the crusader’s reluctance to leave his lover.
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